


Scars

by smolsnxpe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Trauma, Triggers, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22385206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolsnxpe/pseuds/smolsnxpe
Summary: It was also an accurate description of the desperately lonely and unhappy childhood he had with a harsh father who didn’t hold back when it came to the whip.---Pottermore
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 1
Kudos: 110





	1. Chapter 1

The cold surrounded Severus; suffocating his lungs; numbing his limbs; offering small relief from the burning sensation of pain.

Blood trickled down his back like sweet sap out of the wound of an old tree. The blood ran through the grooves and scars of his back, after bubbling up from where the sharp, thin whip mark had slapped into his flesh. Fresh openings overlaying the scars, crisscrossing like scratches on leather.

Severus' breath was a ghost of smoke in the air. His small yelps and pointless, muffled sobs were visible in puffs of steam, quick to vanish from existence.

A grunt behind him, the sound of shoes on gravel. The _crack_ of the whip as it made contact with skin.

_Severus's skin._

"Y'ur done, lad." Another grunt behind him, the slamming of the back door to the house.

Suddenly, he was alone.

Severus lay in the numbing cold, his breathing quick. He balled his fists into the gravel that pathed their garden, the small rocks dug into his bare knees, opening the skin, as his body pressed into the dirt.

The world around him was silent, unimportant, as the pain was deafening, engulfing his rather small and unimportant existence.

How long did he lay in the icy cold evening? _Minutes? Hours?_ The rudy colour that had lit the bricked in garden was gone, only darkness remained, apart from the flickering candle that dared to tease him from his parents bedroom.

The back door opened again with its familiar creek. Severus' body tensed, pulling the wounds of his back, but the foot steps that followed the doors cry were soft.

"Severus, _'ome here_. You'll catch yu'r _death_ out 'ere," Eileen whispered.

A wet rag making contact with his skin. The relief was quiet compared to the loud pain that consumed his body. Severus' jolted instinctively at her touch, gentle or not.

The cloth soaked up the red honey his body leaked, erasing it from his skin and wounds, as if cleaning his body of his sins or burying what Tobias had done.

His mother would pamper him, try to cheer him up with bread pudding or something sweet. She wouldn't stop touching him, trying to forgive herself for letting it happen, insisting this was the last time she would let it happen, but by this point Severus knew she was lying.

It would happen again, it _always_ did.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry gently ran his fingers along the long, thin scars that scattered across Severus's skin, tugging and pulling at the pale flesh.

"You know something?"

Severus stretched himself out like a cat and peered up through his long black hair, making a soft _Mhm?_ noise in curiosity to Harry's question.

"They look like _lightning_ ," The soft chuckle that left Harry was an easy sound.

"They look like whipping scars, Potter." Severus rolled his eyes, even if Harry couldn't see him do so, through his curtains of ebony hair.

"Oh how I love your party pooper personality." A teasing huff of frustration left Harry as he Straddled Severus, sat on his the bottom of his back, his folded legs pinning Severus down on either side of his body.

"Potter, what _are_ you doing?" Severus groaned quietly, the pressure reassuring.

Harry didn't reply to the man under him as he slowly traced down Severus' back, planting kisses down the scars and old wounds.

"You know, I have my own scars to," Harry's voice was quiet in Severus's ear.

"Oh?' Severus's lips pulled into a thin line.

"They aren't as harsh... but the buckle of Vernon's belt didn't heal up like the bruises did," Harrys breath was chilling on Severus's back.

Severus was silent for a few moments, his lip bleeding from anixous chewing. "Not as _harsh_... I dont enjoy it when you downplay your childhood to me, Harry."

"But they arent harsh _when_ \--" Harry stopped his sentence before he could finish it, hands pressed on Severus' shoulders.

"-- _When_ compared to my scars." The deep, exhausted sigh that left Severus was loud in the quiet room.

Harry didnt reply, he didnt need to, as Severus budged his body, shifting under Harry's wait and pushing him off. "Your childhood, Harry, is just as valid. Your trauma isn't defined by what happened.. your trauma doesn't count the amount of nights you went hungry, or the bruises your uncle left. Your trauma is affected by everything that those things _caused_." Severus hissed harsher than he meant to. "Your mind feels fear, your mind lacks security and affection, not dramatic scars! The PTSD you suffer isn't determined by the trauma, but by the conditions those traumatic situations cause."

Harry was quickly pressed into older mans chest, his arms around him tightly, desperate to never let him go. "I... I'm sorry, for trying to compare us."

"Don't be sorry for the way society has forced you to judge yourself." Severus kissed his forehead, right where the scar is, "At the end of the day, we both need therapy and eachothers comfort."


End file.
